The Peace Symbol

The symbol of peace was designed in 1958 by Gerald Holtom, for the "Campaign for
Nuclear Disarmament". It was first used in the march to the Atomic Weapons Research
Establishment at Aldermaston, England.

Holtom began with Nuclear Disarmament, ND for short, and then took the semaphore
signals for those two letters. He combined the symbols, added a ring, and ended up
with one of the most well-known icons of our time.

Semaphores is a system for conveying messages by visual signals, in this case with
two flags held in different positions. One area where it is still used is at sea, thus
the little sailors.

Cushing writes:

Gerald Holtom, a conscientious objector who had worked on a farm
in Norfolk during the Second World War, explained that the symbol
incorporated the semaphore letters N(uclear) and D(isarmament). He
later wrote to Hugh Brock, editor of Peace News, explaining the
genesis of his idea in greater, more personal depth:

I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative
of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards
and downwards in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad.
I formalised the drawing into a line and put a circle round it.

Goya's painting is El tres de mayo de 1808 en Madrid, "The Third of
May 1808", commemorating the resistance to Napoleon's occupation. Together with
Picasso's Guernica, it is the possibly most archetypal and well known
piece of war-related art. Note that the man about to be shot holds his arms
upwards; Holtom remebered it wrong.

Goya: The Third of May 1808

The symbol designed for nuclear disarmament quickly turned into a symbol of peace;
it has never, presumably, been used by people who don't like nuclear weapons but have
no problems with wars in general.

Sometimes Bertrand Russel is mentioned as being partially responsible for the design,
which he wasn't.

One suggestion is that it is the footprint of a peace dove. The idea is nice,
but has nothing to do with how it was created.

A surprisingly common factoid is that the peace symbol should have been first used
by no other than emperor Nero, while persecuting early christians. It is often
described as a "broken cross", indicating a powerless Jesus, or something similar. I
haven't found the slightest trace of historical evidence for this theory. The peace
symbol is not anti-christian.

The closest thing would be the inverted Cross of St. Peter, associated with him
for centuries, but recently got infamous as a supposed satanic symbol - read more
about The Cross of Satan.

Among the runes used in northern Europe ca 100-1500 (that is, by many more people
for a considerably longer time than scandinavians during the Viking Age), one does
resemble the peace sign. This is pure coincidence, as one would expect with such a
simple design.

Reinhard Heydrich on a stamp

Sometimes the Nazis are mentioned. In the Third Reich one could see birth dates of
nazis, or at least SS-men, marked with a Lebensrune,
"rune of life", death dates marked with a Todesrune,
"rune of death"; that is, equivalents of * and †. I do not know how the runes
came to be used in this way, but it has nothing to do whatsoever with Holtom's design.